NetGear WG602 review

NetGear is primarily a networking company, which doesn't have the best reputation for good looking products. Nevertheless, NetGear has clearly given some thought to style with the WG602. It's a small, attractively curvy access point, and its beauty isn't simply skin deep - inside lurks the latest 802.11g wireless networking technology.

As it's a basic AP and not a wireless broadband router, the WG602 has just the single 10/100BaseTX port for wired LAN connectivity, and you'd incur additional cost to add a broadband router. The web interface is spaciously laid out, but that's not surprising considering the small number of options. Apart from 64-bit or 128-bit WEP, plus MAC address control, there's little else to configure, with no ability to hide SSID being the major omission.

However, this can be forgiven when the performance results are taken into account. With NetGear's own WG511 802.11g PC Card adaptor, the WG602 came top in every test. Particularly commendable was the negligible fall-off in throughput in our most gruelling test - something no other 802.11g product in this Labs was able to replicate, and indicative of a strong radio signal. The NetGear even managed equal second in our Centrino test, showing its backwards compatibility with 802.11b is also exemplary.

If you're looking for broadband connectivity with 802.11g, Linksys' Wireless-G gives it to you in one box. NetGear's broadband router version of the WG602 wasn't yet available at time of writing. But if you're adding wireless to an existing wired network, NetGear's WG602 is the fastest way to go.